12. personal exercise programmes

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Learning objectives

What we will learn in this presentation:

Lear

ning

obj

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How to tailor personal exercise programmes to the needs of the individual performer

The principles of training (revisited)

Planning a six week programme

Planning individual training sessions

Evaluating and adapting your training.


Personal exercise programmes

All personal exercise programmes should be designed to improve a specific individual’s fitness or performance.In order to plan an exercise or training programme, you need to understand the following:

the abilities and needs of the individualwhat the training plan is trying to achievethe principles of traininghow to plan a training programmethe different methods of traininghow to assess progress and review the plan.


Individual needs

Before planning your personal exercise programme, you need to assess the abilities and needs of the individual it is being designed for.

Age – some activities may be inappropriate for particularly young or particularly old performers.Current level of health – a clean bill of health is required. If you are recovering from an injury, this will affect the design of your programme.

You need to consider:


Individual needs

Current level of fitness – does the performer exercise already? Are they generally fit? Are they overweight or overfat? What their aims are – do they just want to become healthier? Do they want to improve in the sport that they participate in? Do they have a particular event that they want to prepare for?

What forms of exercise they enjoy doing – when you design a programme, it is best to include activities that the performer enjoys or there is a chance they may cease training due to boredom or lack of interest.

Some people prefer team sports.


Individual needs


Principles of training


Principles of training

There are several other ideas that you should bear in mind when designing a personal exercise programme.

Moderation This means achieving a balance between training enough to achieve improvement and not overtraining. Overtraining can lead to tiredness, illness and injury. Adequate rest should be built into exercise programmes.

PeakingIf the performer is training for a specific event, then the exercise programme should be designed to bring them to peak performance on the big day.


Planning your training

You can now start to write your personal exercise plan.The plan should usually take around six weeks to execute.The first thing you need to do is identify what the goal of your personal exercise plan is going to be. This might be a particular competition, improvement of a certain skill or just to become more healthy.You then need to get specific. Identify the fitness components that need improvement. Think about what is most important:

Aerobic or anaerobic fitness? Flexibility, agility, balance, coordination, power, reaction time, speed or strength? Which muscles? Which skills?


Planning your training – an example

Example case studyErin plays on a local rugby sevens team.The team are playing in an important tournament in six weeks’ time – Erin would like to play at her best.

Her general goal is to improve her game. She goes on to identify three areas that most need improvement.Her specific goals are to:

1. improve her kicking 2. reduce her number of dropped catches3. improve her speed.



When you begin to plan, you should devise a schedule which shows the content of the training sessions across a given time period.

You need to think about:

the frequency of training – how often should you train?rest and moderation – make sure you include enough recovery time after strenuous training sessions.the type of training – remember that training needs to be specific to the individual and their goals, and that training should be varied to avoid tedium.progression – training should be increased as fitness improves and timed to peak before any important events.



You can now go on to plan the individual training sessions.

The session should finish with an appropriate cool-down.

The main session activity should be carefully planned to further your training goals.

Adjust the duration and intensity so that you are training the appropriate energy system.

If you are practising skills, it can be helpful to break them down into their component parts.

Each session should start with an appropriate warm-up.


Evaluating and adapting your training

After you have completed some of your training, you should evaluate the progress you have made.The following questions may assist you in the evaluation process:

Did you complete all the sessions in the PEP?Was the amount of exercise that you planned for each week right for you?Which of the sessions did you enjoy most? Why?Did you not enjoy any of the sessions? Why? Were particular sessions too hard or too easy? Why?

Use the table on the next slide to evaluate the first week of a PEP, concentrating on

two specific training sessions.



It is useful to evaluate your training after the first week so that elements that clearly aren’t working can be changed.

You may then need to evaluate it again after three or four weeks, by which time the training may need to be made harder in order to achieve overload.

You should review your training programme again at the end to assess how effective it was in achieving your training goals.


Exam-style question

1. Explain how the principles of overload and progression should be incorporated into an effective personal exercise plan.

2. Andre is training for a badminton tournament. He is particularly worried about his speed around the court and his weak backhand.

Andre decides that the best way to improve his speed is to run 8 km twice a week.

a) Suggest two activities that he could include in his training, and explain how they would help.

b) Which principle of training has Andre forgotten?

12. personal exercise programmes

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